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"I don't think we're going to make an offer at this point," said Rebney. "So I don't see any reason to make anybody sit out."

"If Ben's going to go to the UFC, we should speed up that process so he can go fight. I'd love to see Ben versus GSP."

"If the UFC does make an offer, we'll take a look at it and move on from there. We haven't been proactive yet. I have nothing but good things to say about Ben as a fighter, but we're all very aware of how he fights and what he does... It's not for everyone."

Rebney frankly described Bellator's welterweights as being short on wrestling, and long on striking, and attributed that to the Olympian's dominating success.

"Until the wrestling game evolves they're going to have big problems with a guy like Ben Askren," said Rebney. "He does what he does, takes them out of their environment, and that makes for incredibly lopsided fights."

In an interview with MMAJunkie's Ben Fowkles, Askren reflects on Rebney's unusual stance.

"I'm happy, more than anything, that they're [waiving] the exclusive [negotiating] period, so now I don't have to sit out 90 days before anything even starts to happen," said Askren. "That's definitely a positive thing."

"Let's face it, they've got these guys they're trying to bring up, trying to make into stars, and then I outstrike them 248-3 and make them look like they're a child. It's pretty tough to make them a star after that."

"Honestly, I think it could be a ploy on their part to get the UFC to make a lower offer, so when they go to match it's not as hard."

"I'm fairly indifferent to what [Rebney] said. I got in MMA for one reason: to see if I could be the best in the world. Actually, he's doing me a favor if he lets me go to the UFC and test myself. I mean, I wouldn't be upset that I'm getting paid a bunch of money to beat up guys who aren't as good as me, but I would like those challenges if it's possible."

"I don't know that there are any challenges left in Bellator, so yeah, I think the only challenges for me are in the UFC."

"If Ben's going to go to the UFC, we should speed up that process so he can go fight. I'd love to see Ben versus GSP."

"If the UFC does make an offer, we'll take a look at it and move on from there. We haven't been proactive yet. I have nothing but good things to say about Ben as a fighter, but we're all very aware of how he fights and what he does... It's not for everyone."

Rebney frankly described Bellator's welterweights as being short on wrestling, and long on striking, and attributed that to the Olympian's dominating success.

"Until the wrestling game evolves they're going to have big problems with a guy like Ben Askren," said Rebney. "He does what he does, takes them out of their environment, and that makes for incredibly lopsided fights."

Askren recently said that he thinks Redney's stance could be a negotiating tactic.

"Honestly, I think it could be a ploy on their part to get the UFC to make a lower offer, so when they go to match it's not as hard," said 'Funky'.

However, Asken's striking coach, Duke Roufus appeared recently on Ariel Helwani's The MMA Hour and said that he thinks Bellator is simply tapping out.

"I think it's pretty exciting for Ben to come over (to UFC)," said Roufus. "He's definitely going to go to the deep waters of UFC. We're going to see how well he's going to do in the UFC. I think it's not good for Bellator to say, 'Hey, let's let our champion go.' It helps Ben, but it hurts their organization in the long run. You have to value your champion. I'm not commenting negatively, I was at their last show with Ben, I thought they did a great job, but, how do you just let your champion go? You basically tapped out and said, 'We are second place to the UFC.'"

Man, I have no idea how to read this. Bellator snatches Tito and Rampage but lets go of Askren without a fight? Is this a real business plan for their target audience? Is this just a ploy to lower his negotiating price?

The impression I got was that bjorn feels if his champ goes to the UFC and wins the belt itll be great for the organization.

^^^^This. Bjorn's taking a gamble but if Ben's style is really as effective in the UFC it could happen. I've never seen a guy scramble like Ben, he's an STD when he gets on ya....It would be a marketing nightmare for the UFC, but then again they are used to GSP decisioning fights all the time so, maybe it wouldn't be as much of a change?

"I don't call the fighting in my films 'violent', I call it 'action'. An action film borders between fantasy and reality. If I were to be completely realistic in my films, you would call me a violent, bloody man. I would simply destroy my opponent by tearing his guts out. I wouldn't do it so artistically." ~Bruce Lee

^^^^This. Bjorn's taking a gamble but if Ben's style is really as effective in the UFC it could happen. I've never seen a guy scramble like Ben, he's an STD when he gets on ya....It would be a marketing nightmare for the UFC, but then again they are used to GSP decisioning fights all the time so, maybe it wouldn't be as much of a change?

o far, it hasn't been the same kind of controversy that Bellator MMA experienced with Eddie Alvarez's free agency.

What will happen to the promotion's welterweight champion, Ben Askren, remains to be seen. But Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney believes the elite-level wrestler will continue having success if he stays or if he goes.

At this point, backhanded compliments might be just part of the game.

"What I said was I wouldn't stand in his way of getting an offer – that I wouldn't make him spend 90 or 100 days on the shelf negotiating with us," Rebney on Friday told AXS TV's "Inside MMA." "Ben said he wanted to go out and see what the UFC would offer. I said, 'You know what? Let's cut this short. You go out and see what they'll offer, and we'll make a determination from there.' So right now, we're just waiting for Ben to come back, show us the offer from the UFC and we'll make a determination from there."

As of now, Askren hasn't presented a UFC offer to Bellator – or at least if he has, Rebney hasn't gone public with it.

"I've been a staunch supporter of Ben Askren," Rebney said. "We can all agree: He's ridiculously one-dimensional. But the issue with that one dimension is that he's better at it than anyone on the face of the earth. He's been dominant inside of our cage. He's the best wrestler in MMA that we have in this sport. So look, if you don't like wrestling and you don't like what Ben does, then stop it. That's why they call it a fight. Ben famously said up in Canada, 'If you want to see two guys stand in the middle of the cage and hit each other in the face, there's a sport called boxing.' He's executed beautifully."

So does the CEO think he can re-sign his champion if the UFC makes an offer?

"We'll see what happens with Ben," he said. "I don't know if Ben will be with us, I don't know if Ben will be with the UFC. But wherever he goes, he will remain dominant and he will remain amazingly effective at the one thing he does better than anybody."